Kata is not a magical solution. Kata is not a definitive solution. Kata is not perfect. Kata is in all cases a training tool, however deep or profound the inspiration derived from it.
So I agree; why not?
Speaking only for myself, three reasons.
1) As previously stated, I haven't the authority to change anything about the system I practice - and I never will have.
2) I do not understand the kata I practice well enough to presume that it a) doesn't have all the answers and b) that I am capable of extending it in any meaningful way.
3) I see no reason/desire/need to do so.
Exactly. Itosu took Channan and made it into something for young children. He asked Matsumura for more kata, and got another form, even simpler, again for young children. then he took Kusanku and made two more forms for children in school to get some exercise. Finally, he took a really old form (dare I say ancient?), Passai, and twisted it around willy nilly to form yet another exercise for schoolchildren to practice harmlessly in the schoolyard.
I am not Itosu.
He did this over a short period of time, employing no miraculous understanding or deep wisdom. He, bowing to the hierarchic social pressures lingering from feudal Japan, consulted previous, established, respected forms to produce a kata suitable for children, derived from Okinawan martial arts, and without offending procedure and limitations on personal extrapolation in the contemporary culture.
As far as you know, "employing no miraculous understanding or deep wisdom." I suspect that many people believe Itosu was quite wise indeed. Just because we do not perceive a deeper meaning, that does not mean it is not there. I am not claiming it is or is not, just that I do not presume to know.
Today many of us view these forms, the Piñon/Pinan/Heian as irrefutable dictations of the purest martial arts.
I could not say, those are not kata I practice.
Or perhaps they were a creative invention to get school children in shape, many of whom, according to the Japanese military of the day, were scrawny and less physical than desired for purposes of combat. Depressing though that is, that is part of the history of the Sino-Japanese and by extension Korean/European American practice. The idea that new kata/forms//hyung should not be created is, well, not very traditional, by any historical view.
Were I to presume that I was ready and desirous of creating a new system, I would also feel myself empowered to create any kata I wished, or to modify existing kata to fit the style I designed. However, that is not who I am, or what I feel I will ever become. I am a student of an existing style, one which I deeply believe is in need of no modification.
True. My school teaches, basically, eleven forms. If you can find a functional form of movement not represented in those eleven forms, if you can find a sequence of functional technique which is not somewhere applicable, then by all means, create new forms. However, the need to do so, I feel, is highly limited.
This is where I still seem to be miscommunicating with everyone in this thread. To me, whether or not a given kick, block, jump, throw, gouge, etc, is explicitly seen in a particular kata is of little to no consequence. It just doesn't matter if the system is encoded in the kata, which I believe mine is.
"But your X kata doesn't have Y application in it?" "Oh, doesn't it? Are you sure?" Speaking only for myself, I have yet to be able to answer affirmatively to that question.
As an aside, Bill Mattocks, I am more and more over the past couple weeks, short a span thought that is, begining to see why so many martial artists on this forum were excited by your return. You may only have a few years of training, but let us again remember the differnces between years training, capability gained, and understanding developed. I'm glad you're back.
Thank you for the kind words. I am merely a beat-up old Jarhead (240 years old today, you know) who knows little but says much. The opposite of wisdom, but I talk a good game.
Huh. Why is it that the guy who doesn't do forms has, to me, one of the best explanations, on a surface level, of forms?
I guess you always have a more objective view from the neighboring town...
When I started training, as the Zen saying goes, the mountain was a mountain, the river was a river...
You are familiar, I'm sure, with the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant.
Blind men and an elephant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I claim no Satori, no awakening, no deep understanding of kata. When I started doing kata, it was a set of exercises, patterns, that helped me to practice and memorize a set of specific movements. I began to learn the basics of breathing and balance. Over time, continued practice became a vehicle through which I could explore the possibilities of the movements as the related to time and opportunity to strike and defend, act and react. Continued practice began to provide me with what I believe to be a deeper understanding of rhythm and timing. Transitions and stances began to become more visible and important to me. Then I began to feel as if doing kata was a moving meditation, and finally (most recently), I began to see, though yet dimly-lit and far away, a notion that kata is not only the key to karate, but that it forms an essential part of the 'do' that forms the path I seek to be part of.
I don't know a lot. But I do believe I know that a bunch of exercises, it ain't. It's as if someone complained that a song didn't have all the possible notes in it. First, so what, and second, are you really sure? Change the song? Brother, it's not my song. Maybe someday I'll write my own song, but I doubt it. The song I'm trying to sing is going to take up all the time I have left on this earth and then some to learn to sing correctly.
